Mapleshade's Vengeance/Chapter 6
Chapter description :Mapleshade is sharpening her claws on a stone. A hawk swoops overhead, and she imagines it feasting on Ravenwing's dead body. It gets dark and Mapleshade keeps a watch for movement on the hill. She spots a darker shadow, Ravenwing, alone and early. Mapleshade unsheathes her claws and scratches the stone. She almost attacks him, but she stops when she realizes she might be seen by the other medicine cats. She comes up with the idea to follow him to the Moonstone and attack him there. Mapleshade pictures the tunnel, and her pelt pricks, but the sounds of her kits wailing encourages her. Ravenwing enters the entrance to Mothermouth, and the tortoiseshell rogue follows. :She tries to keep her pawsteps light, but Ravenwing hears her and asks who's there. After a few moments, the black tom continues down the tunnel. They arrive at the Moonstone, and Mapleshade drops down into the hunter's crouch. Ravenwing kneels in front of the Moonstone with his head bowed, and Mapleshade leaps onto his back, sending him rolling. He recognizes her and asks what she's doing here. Mapleshade responds that she's avenging the death of her kits, and that if she could kill him three times over, she would. Without saying anything else, Mapleshade bites down on Ravenwing's neck, killing him. :Hearing pawsteps, Mapleshade hides behind the Moonstone, and the other medicine cats walk into the cave. Larkwing, the WindClan medicine cat, sees Ravenwing's body and hisses, asking what happened. The ShadowClan medicine cat, Sloefur, sniffs his body and announces in horror that he's dead. Larkwing says they can't leave Ravenwing there, and they drag him back up to the surface. Mapleshade waits for the rest of the day, wondering if the medicine cats will come back. They don't, and when dawn arrives, she exits the tunnel. She finds Ravenwing's grave and digs it up. Mapleshade looks up at a circling hawk and thinks to herself that he can be its next meal. :Mapleshade bounds away from the grave, asking if her kits were watching as she had killed Ravenwing. She hopes they never have to see him in StarClan, and thinks that he should go to the Place of No Stars. She crawls under a hedge, exhausted, when she hears two of her kits, Patchkit and Petalkit, crying out for help. They appear in front of her, drenched. Mapleshade wonders where Larchkit is. She hears the voices again, and figures out that since she had only killed one cat, only one kit had been avenged, and asks StarClan why they're doing this to her. :An image of Frecklewish appears in her mind, and Mapleshade thinks about how Nettlepaw told her that Frecklewish had watched her kits be swept away and hadn't helped. Like Ravenwing, she needs to pay for what she did. Mapleshade realizes killing Frecklewish will be difficult, as she only leaves ThunderClan to go to Gatherings, and when she was in the territory she was never alone. Mapleshade wonders how to trap her, and trips on an ivy tendril that looks like a glossy green snake. It reminds her of Snakerocks, and she decides to lure Frecklewish there. Characters Major *Ravenwing }} Minor *Sloefur }} Mentioned *Larchkit *Petalkit *Frecklewish *Nettlepaw }} Important events Deaths *Ravenwing is murdered by Mapleshade. Notes and references Category:Mapleshade's Vengeance Category:Chapter subpages Category:Novellas